The Table By The Window
by violence4
Summary: They've been sitting there ten minutes now. They haven't spoken once.


**Depressing oneshot that seized me and demanded to be written after I read another story about watching people in a cafe.**

**Disclaimer: Boosh characters belong to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.**

**Notes: "you" can be anybody. In fact, it's meant to be _you_... the reader.**

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**The Table By The Window**

The doors of Starbucks are steaming up from the hotness of everybody's breath contrasting sharply against the biting wind outside. The kind of wind that seems to go right through you.

People come in, stomping their feet and clapping their hands to get their blood flowing to their extremities again, faces glowing from the cold and hair wild. Coats are buttoned up to noses and hats are pulled down over faces, making everyone seem anonymous. Perhaps that's the way everyone wants to be. In the city, no-one wants to be seen.

That's why it's so surprising when you see people you actually can take in. You'll never really know anything about these people, of course. You'll never know how their lives brought them to the moment when you see them, and, as much as you might try to imagine it, you'll never know where they'll go after they pass out of your line of vision. But for a brief time, they break the norm of the city – they allow you to see them. That's why, when you get the chance, you try to listen to other people's conversations.

People like the two men over there at the table by the window.

One of them, the older one, has been here about an hour already. He wears brown trousers and a navy coat. He arrived silently, without the clattering and sighs of relief at the warmth that most people use to accompany them through the doors. Even when he ordered his drink it was as though he made no sound. His brown eyes were empty. He looked at the man behind the till but, at the same time, didn't look. Didn't see.

Then he went and sat in a brown armchair at the table by the window and looked out at people passing on the steely frozen pavement, and waited.

And then another man came.

And when you saw him… well, you'd have looked at him anyway. He was slender. Raven-haired. Pale, razor-sharp cheeks that look like they are carved out of marble. Wearing a furry white coat with matching white boots. A beauty, by all accounts. You'd have looked at him because he was someone who did want to be seen. Or at least, he used to be. As he came through the door then, he looked almost nervous, as though he was worried someone might catch him doing something he shouldn't be.

But you looked at him even more than you would have normally because somehow, somehow you knew, you just knew, that he was the one the man at the table by the window was waiting for.

You knew because there was something as he came in. Something. What? A slight shudder from the man at the table by the window? A slight movement in the eyes of the man coming through the door? A disturbance in the atmosphere? Maybe it was nothing. Maybe something just made you pair them together.

The man in the white coat went to the till, heels clipping on the floor of the café, a sound you could hear even above the general hubbub of everyone talking and laughing and complaining about the cold weather. He reduced them all to silence. And, as he went, the man at the table by the window turned his head, and watched him, as though he felt how the man in white reduced everything to silence too.

The man in the white coat ordered a frappucino, a mango one, as though he almost wanted to make himself colder. Then, without any sign that he had been invited there – perhaps arrangements had been made beforehand – he went and sat in the other brown armchair at the table by the window, ignoring the man already there, but somehow, at the same time, acknowledging him with the shrug of his shoulders that let his coat fall down behind his back.

They've been sitting there ten minutes now.

They haven't spoken once.

The first man, the one in navy, looks alternately into the depths of his cup – although he hasn't drunk from it in so long you are sure he finished his drink ages ago – and out of the window.

The second man, who has revealed a loose, floaty white tunic from under the coat he took off, a sharp contrast to his raven hair, sticks his finger into the cream on the top of his drink like a child, brings it up to his mouth, and sucks it off.

Then they suddenly look at each other.

As though they always planned to do it, and were only avoiding each other's eyes to keep you guessing, they suddenly, simultaneously, look at each other, and their eyes meet, and then they can't seem to look away.

"How have you been?"

The first man speaks.

He is Northern, you can tell by his accent.

"Oh. A'right." The second one, he's a Londoner… South London.

"You?"

"Fine. Fine."

"Didya wait long?" asks the man in white.

"No, no." The first man seems to take comfort in repeating one-syllable words. This is a lie, you know, he knows, and perhaps the man in white knows too, although it is difficult to tell from his face. He looks blank. Almost ghostly.

They are silent again.

The man in white dips his finger again, sucks cream off again.

This time the man in navy watches him.

Then, the man in navy says, "What have you been doing?"

"Music." Yes, the man in white – he looks like he could be in a rock band. "I got a band. We just bin signed, ac'tally."

"Really?"

"Yeah… not a big label or nothin'. Jus' a lil'indie set-up. Gonna do a CD, maybe do some gigs…" He tails off. He seems to sense the man in navy isn't interested, or just doesn't know enough about this topic to be able to listen properly. "What 'bout you?"

"Music." The man in navy nods slowly as he says this, as though acknowledging to everyone around him, including you and the man in white, that he has been beaten to the punch, and this isn't the first time it's happened. No, you sense from looking at the lines on his face, the slight slump of his shoulders that increases as he speaks, that this has happened many times before.

So they've got history, these men.

"Jazz?"

"Yeah."

"Any good?"

"Yeah. All right." He gives no more detail. The man in white drops his eyes again. He has blue eyes, like summer lakes. Summer lakes that have now frozen over.

Again they sit in silence.

Again the man in white dips his finger in the cream on his drink, and again the man in navy watches.

This time, though, the man in white looks up at the man in navy halfway through, before he has licked his finger, as though he wants to ask, "What you lookin' at?"

He doesn't, but the other man gets it too. He says, as though in answer to the unasked question, "You always used to do that."

There is almost a tremble in the air. As though the compound of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapour, argon – as though it is all trying to hold back tears.

There is a stab of recognition in the frozen lake eyes. "Yeah – you always used ta put cream on me hot chocolate."

You wonder if the man in navy is the man in white's father.

Their eyes meet at that, properly, with warmth, not just haunted vacant gazes. But it only lasts a second. Then they both bow their heads and look away.

You wonder what could have happened to put such a barrier between this father and son – if that is what they are – to mean that, even when they sit at the same table, there seems to be a wall of ice between them, that nothing can melt.

Not that the man in white isn't trying. Suddenly you see his face is flushing, and suddenly the frozen lake eyes seem to go through some sort of thaw: they tremble with burning tears. This is all so sudden that you wonder if you are making this up. But no, it is happening: quivering hot drops standing out in his eyes, and his lips pressing together as he tries to keep from sobbing loudly in public.

The man in navy sees too.

For a second, the look on his face is like the end of the world.

You can almost see the nuclear holocausts and viral epidemics and the expanding sun swallowing the planet on his features.

He reaches out, tentatively, as though to pat the hand of the other man – but then thinks better of it and scratches his own arm instead. He breathes out. He says nothing.

The man in white looks up at him.

"You –" And as soon as he speaks, the tears lose their balance in his eyes and topple forwards, skidding down the pale, razor-sharp cheeks that look like they are carved out of marble – but now marble someone has bled all over because he is red with emotion.

Now the man in navy does reach out and touch his hand. Very lightly. Very fast. Then he draws his own hand back.

"You remember that?" the man in white asks, presumably meaning the cream on the hot chocolate, although perhaps cream on hot chocolate means a lot more to them.

"Yes." A simple word. It sounds dead in the man in navy's mouth.

"D'you remember… d'you remember the zoo?"

"Yes."

The man in white's voice rises, just a little. "D'you remember the shop?"

"Yes."  
"D'you remember the flat?"

"Yes."

"D'you – d'you remember _us_?"

Pause.

Then:

"Yes." Those three letters seem to weigh so much that they drag the whole table downwards a couple of inches.

The man in white looks at the man in navy. More tears skim his cheeks, streaking them with lines that catch the light.

Perhaps they are not father and son. Perhaps they are lovers. Ex-lovers. Lovers meeting again after years apart. Lovers who know they can never go back.

The man in navy turns away, as though accepting this fact, and looks out of the window again. He watches a couple walk past hand in hand, bundled into coats, keeping each other warm with their smiles.

The man in white doesn't seem able to accept. He dabs at his face with his fingertips. The more he tries to brush his tears away, the more they come.

He struggles with this for a few seconds.

Then, he says, "D'you remember – d'you remember what happened to us?"

The man in navy looks back at him now. He doesn't say anything. His soul seems to be shredding apart in his eyes, but the rest of his face conveys no emotion.

"We – we were so good together," says the man in white. "We were; y'know we were. Y'know it. You remember."

Lovers.

The man in navy nods.

More tears run down the face of the man in white. "We were – we were like the two sides on a coin, or whatever you said – that's what you said."

"That's what I said." Now the man in navy's voice sounds almost like the voice of someone who has been dead for years.

"I thought ya meant it!"

"I did."

There is a stab of silence again at that. They look at each other. In their eyes, in tat look, they seem to remember a first glance across a bar or in the street – a first conversation – a first kiss in the shadows somewhere, stolen, with no-one supposed to know – love-making, mouths pressed to each other's shoulders so as not to make any noise – declarations of undying affection, perhaps even rings – and then – then a break.

Or at least, this is what you imagine they are remembering so wordlessly.

Perhaps they are remembering totally different things.

But no, you are right about one thing, or almost right: the man in white reaches into his pocket and pulls out a necklace – not a ring but a similar symbol – with a strange, twisted pendant on it. He puts it on the table in front of the other man, carefully, nervously, like a sacrificial offering to an angry god.

They both look down at it.

"The necklace I gave you," says the man in navy.

"Yeah."

"You kept it?" For the first time, the man in navy's voice wavers slightly.

"Yeah."

"You said – when I was leaving – you said you gave it away. You said you traded it in for that rare Gary Numan recording…"

"I know. I shouldn't 'ave; I should 'ave told ya –"

"Well," says the man in navy, with a sigh that sounds much older than the rest of him, "It doesn't matter any more."

At that, the man in white seems to fracture. To splinter. You can almost see the terrible black cracks spreading like spider-webs across his glassy face.

More tears stream. Freer now. Faster. The frozen lake eyes are thawing more rapidly. But there is no spring. This is a bizarre winter thaw. It will all freeze up again soon.

It is almost heart-breaking, to see such a beautiful face so torn apart.

The man in navy dares one glance at the destruction. But he doesn't seem to trust himself to bear it. Again, when he looks, he looks like the world is ending, and then he looks away.

"We knew, when we started it, that if we couldn't make it work, we'd lose everything," he says, not looking at his companion.

The man in white nods. He rubs each cheek with the back of his hand.

"We probably should have known we wouldn't be able to make it work."

The man in white nods again, but you suspect he doesn't really agree.

"And after what happened – after all those things – after you have those things with somebody, and you lose them again, you don't feel the same."

"No," says the man in white, his voice a low, defeated tremble. "You don't feel the same." He bows his head and looks at his drink. The cream is punctured with finger marks but other than that, he hasn't touched it.

Outside, the wind blows people's coats.

The man in navy looks at his watch.

"I have a meeting…"

The man in white looks up.

"I have to go."

The man in white says nothing, but seems to plead, wordlessly: not yet, don't go, don't leave me like this…

"You were late." The first time the man in navy has mentioned that he has been there for a long time. In his face, you almost see the words, "You were always late." The man in white seems to see it too. He bows his head. He breaks the gaze. He can't say anything else.

The man in navy stands up. "Are you going to be all right?" he asks.

The man in white nods, head still bowed.

The man in navy pulls his coat round himself, doing up the buttons. He takes a step, and then pauses, standing over the man in white. For a moment, he hesitates by the table by the window, and the man in white sits, the opposite of how it was when the man in white arrived – now the first man is above, and the second man is below, and you get the sense that this is a reverse of how things normally are. Or how things normally were.

The man in navy reaches out.

His fingers go towards the man in white's face. Towards his cheekbone. As though he wants to touch that delicate face just one more time. Touch it the way you imagine he used to, stroking the skin in the dark of a bedroom once their breathing had calmed down, murmuring that they would always be together, and I love you, I love you…

The man in white doesn't seem to see his fingers.

It is only a few seconds, anyway.

He doesn't get a chance to see them.

Because then the man in navy steels himself, and snatches them away.

"We should see each other again," he says.

"Yes," says the man in white.

You can tell – probably they can as well – that they won't.

"Well…" The man in navy seems helpless. "Goodbye, then."

The man in white looks up. His face is still stained. But his eyes have frozen over again, as you knew they would. "Goodbye… Howard."

The name hangs.

It is a name that the man in navy hardly seems to know belongs to him any more.

He certainly doesn't react to the use of it.

But maybe he can't any more. Maybe he has been almost dead too long.

Instead, he simply nods to the man in white, and turns, and walks out of the shop. The door swings a little behind him. He is gone down the road, as silently as he came, blending into the slate-coloured world of the winter city almost instantly.

In the city, no-one wants to be seen.

And the man in white – the only one who seems able to see him – follows him down the road with his eyes. Follows him for a long time, even after he must have turned a corner, or crossed a road, and disappeared.

And when he finally seems to lose sight of him, he brushes across his cheeks fiercely, and gets up himself. He puts on his furry coat. He leaves his drink almost the way it was when he bought it. He too walks out of the door, again leaving it swinging. He goes the opposite direction. The heels of his boots make him lean forward slightly. He goes down the pavement. You can again almost hear the clicking sound of his heels on the paving stones as he disappears. But that is all.

Other than that, he too makes no sound.

And the table by the window, with the one empty mug and the one nearly full plastic cup with cream dotted about, and the two chairs pulled out as though waiting to be occupied, makes no sound.

And you – you make no sound either.

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**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


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